Vista Home Premium came preinstalled on the laptop I bought in August. I have to say I haven't had any problems with Vista in these seven months. For that matter, I've never had serious problems with any version of Windows. I've never had a virus or malware infestation. My systems do not slow down the longer I use them. I do run a tight ship.

I haven't installed Service Pack 1 yet. I generally wait at least a month on things like service packs so the dust can settle. You can find out whether there are problems showing up frequently and make a more informed decision. But even if I wanted to install SP1 now, Windows Update isn't offering it to me. In reading up on this in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, I discovered my sound driver is one of the rather common ones that don't interact well with SP 1, so SP 1 won't be offered to me until I upgrade the driver or Microsoft issues a fix. There are some pretty common audio drivers that prevent SP 1 from being offered through Windows Update: AC97 and two Sigmatels, among others. Mine is one of the Sigmatels. It's a Gateway laptop, so I went to their support site and looked for a newer driver. Nothing. Nor was there one word about SP 1. So I guess I'll be waiting for Gateway and/or Microsoft to get their act together.

I use VL 5.9 Deluxe about 80% of the time on that computer, maybe 90% of the time. I don't dislike Windows, I just like Linux much better.

As for problems with SP 1, every service pack for Windows that I can remember has caused problems for some systems. In the vast majority of cases, they work. But if you're one of the minority who winds up with a mess, that's not any comfort. The SP has an uninstall option but that doesn't always work. Best advice: make an image file before you do anything major that affects the system.--GrannyGeek

Vista Home Premium came preinstalled on the laptop I bought in August. I have to say I haven't had any problems with Vista in these seven months. For that matter, I've never had serious problems with any version of Windows. I've never had a virus or malware infestation. My systems do not slow down the longer I use them. I do run a tight ship.

I'm just going to say that while I don't necessarily run a tight ship, I don't browse stupidly either. That, I think, will be one of the major reasons my computer use is 99.99% hassle-free. Ironically, the 0.01% of hassles crop up when I try to use linux. And usually when I try to use it at uni :/

Which is very frustrating, because my Eee is my uni-machine, and it's staying pure-linux.

Most of my computer problems crop up when the 'Doze fails to meet my modest needs or, especially in the case of Vista, runs as fast as several pounds of cheddar cheese being extruded through a thimble.

Most of my computer problems crop up when the 'Doze fails to meet my modest needs or, especially in the case of Vista, runs as fast as several pounds of cheddar cheese being extruded through a thimble.

Most of my computer problems crop up when the 'Doze fails to meet my modest needs or, especially in the case of Vista, runs as fast as several pounds of cheddar cheese being extruded through a thimble.

Like they say on some TV commercials here: "It's the cheese".

You're somewhere in Scandanavia if I remember right. Maybe a rip Danish Brie will do better going through that thimble.

Every time I end up having to support a Windows user for a client I wonder how anybody puts up with that operating system.

Hey dont worry! all this criticism is only going to make MS more mature, updates are released every Tuesday, eventually Vista is going to be stable; but I dont feel MS is in good shape from the time Bill Gates started concentrating on social service.

Vista Home Premium came preinstalled on the laptop I bought in August. I have to say I haven't had any problems with Vista in these seven months. For that matter, I've never had serious problems with any version of Windows. I've never had a virus or malware infestation. My systems do not slow down the longer I use them. I do run a tight ship.

I haven't installed Service Pack 1 yet. I generally wait at least a month on things like service packs so the dust can settle. You can find out whether there are problems showing up frequently and make a more informed decision. But even if I wanted to install SP1 now, Windows Update isn't offering it to me. In reading up on this in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, I discovered my sound driver is one of the rather common ones that don't interact well with SP 1, so SP 1 won't be offered to me until I upgrade the driver or Microsoft issues a fix. There are some pretty common audio drivers that prevent SP 1 from being offered through Windows Update: AC97 and two Sigmatels, among others. Mine is one of the Sigmatels. It's a Gateway laptop, so I went to their support site and looked for a newer driver. Nothing. Nor was there one word about SP 1. So I guess I'll be waiting for Gateway and/or Microsoft to get their act together.

I use VL 5.9 Deluxe about 80% of the time on that computer, maybe 90% of the time. I don't dislike Windows, I just like Linux much better.

As for problems with SP 1, every service pack for Windows that I can remember has caused problems for some systems. In the vast majority of cases, they work. But if you're one of the minority who winds up with a mess, that's not any comfort. The SP has an uninstall option but that doesn't always work. Best advice: make an image file before you do anything major that affects the system.--GrannyGeek

As for problems with SP 1, every service pack for Windows that I can remember has caused problems for some systems. In the vast majority of cases, they work. But if you're one of the minority who winds up with a mess, that's not any comfort. The SP has an uninstall option but that doesn't always work. Best advice: make an image file before you do anything major that affects the system.--GrannyGeek

It hasn't always been that way. Back in the days when Windows NT 4 was the latest and greatest I did more work with Windows. The joke with NT4 was that odd numbered service packs were fine and even numbered ones were disasters. SP1, SP3, and SP5 were clean and there were very few reports of any problems. SP2 and SP4 were never deployed by my employer at the time because the problems were legendary.

I think in the '90s it was easier for MS to actually have a clean SP because the OS was smaller and less complex. The bigger, more bloated, and more complex it gets the more opportunity there is for things to go wrong. That's why we see the mantra of "modular OS" being touted for the next Windows release. Of course, the same was said of Vista and it proved not to be true.

Vector Linux 5.9 Deluxe did not come pre-installed on my computer. I had to install it myself. I've had lots of difficulties with various versions of Linux, but no major ones with Vector. Also, I've never had any virus or other malware infestations, though some kind of beetle did fry itself in one of my power supplies a few years ago. I do not run a particularly tight ship. In fact, I look at whatever websites I want to without worrying ... you know which ones I mean.

Tom

Logged

"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." - Linus Torvalds, April 1991